SPSC ad-hoc lecturers | Education in shambles

Govt to regularise 850 ad-hoc lecturers through SPSC: Mazhar
Karachi, Feb 10: Senior Provincial Minister for Education and Literacy Pir Mazharul Haq announced that the Sindh government has decided to regularise 850 ad-hoc lecturers, provided that they pass the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) exam.

Talking to the media at the Sindh Assembly premises, Haq said that official directives have already been issued in this regard. He said that the former government recruited the ad-hoc lecturers but the Pakistan People's Party-led Sindh government has decided to regularise their jobs on humanitarian grounds.

"Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah has issued the directives to the education secretary to compile a list of 850 ad-hoc lecturers besides collecting the required educational certificates," said Haq. He added that the government had recognised the demands of these ad-hoc lecturers that they should be allowed to appear in the examination of SPSC in this regard.

He further said it was also decided that the SPSC will only conduct interviews of these ad-hoc lecturers and they would not have to take any written exams. "The Sindh government has also decided that in future, no one will be recruited in government departments on an ad-hoc basis," he added.

SPLA rejects re-interviewing of ad-hoc lecturers
Karachi: The Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA) on Monday rejected the offer of Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq regarding the regularisation of 850 ad-hoc lecturers in Sindh, if they appear and pass interviews to be conducted by the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC). SPLA Karachi Division General Secretary Prof Iftikhar Mohammad Azmi said that the ad-hoc teachers of Sindh will not take any sort of tests or interviews by the SPSC.

Prof Azmi maintained that that the ad-hoc teachers had already passed tests and interviews before their appointment on an ad-hoc basis, adding that a representative of the SPSC was also present when the interviews were conducted. He said that the ad-hoc lecturers should be regularised, as they had been regularised in 1989 and 1994. He reminded that it was the PPP government that had regularised these teachers in the past. "I don't understand why the government wants to re-interview these teachers," he said, adding that they have been opposing such decisions since the beginning and will continue to do so." "We will take out protest rallies in Hyderabad and Sukkur on February 14 and 19 to protest against the unjustified decisions being taken by the provincial government against the teachers," said Prof Azmi. He said that the regularisation of teachers is not the only issue faced by Sindh teachers, while regretting that no one was paying attention to the education sector. ppi

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Education in shambles
Karachi: Rather than looking like a school, the building looks like it belongs at the bottom of a lake. Broken pillars of the main veranda fallen in sewerage water, wild grass, weed and shrubs wrapping themselves around everything, remind one of a once glorious ship that caught the tip of an iceberg and fell deep into oblivion. Only the heap of broken wooden school chairs lying outside, tangled into each other give off a hint that the building used to house a school.

The Federal Government or FG Boys Secondary School in Ibn-e-Seena Lines is proof enough to the falseness in all the tall claims made by officials. It is not a school of a remote village in some far off district of Sindh, but is adjacent to the Saddar town police station on main Shahra-e-Faisal just opposite to the Gora Qabaristan. The school symbolises all the forgotten policies made by the policymakers of this country.

Surrounded by tall wild bushes, the school building can barely be seen; its boundary wall has been knocked down from various places making way for stray dogs and drug addicts to enter the premises and take a nap in a place that used to impart education. According to the nearby shopkeepers, the school was functional till last month and then all of sudden when the sewerage water entered the building, the school shut down and has been shut since then.

Ustad Manzoor, a welder, said that the main sanitation line chocked around two months ago because trucks threw construction material and debris into the line. As a result, the school building was inundated with sewerage water. The blocked sanitation system made a big sewerage pond all around the building where wild bushes began to grow. The sizes of these bushes reveal that it has been a while since they have been growing. Though the main gate of the building looks to be in a better condition, the entrance of the school building itself is in the worst condition of all. The cemented floor of the main corridors is completely shattered and the roof is dilapidated. If not removed, the stagnant water in the building will soon completely destroy what is left.

The vastness of the muddy courtyard reveals that before becoming the bed of a sewerage lake, it was used for assemblies in the morning and during the day it was used as a playground by the students.

The school is under the administrative control of the federal government and no one at the province level looks after the school. The Z-shaped school building comprises of around twenty classrooms and offices. The elderly guard and neighbouring shopkeepers did not know whether after shutting the school down, the school's students were shifted to other schools or were they sent on vacations till their school reopened. Despite repeated attempts, no contact could be made with the school headmaster to get an official statement.

The seriousness the higher authorities show towards improving education institutes can be gauged from the fact that when this scribe contacted Federal Education Minister Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani to get an official statement, he said that he has no time to get information about such low level issues. "I didn't even know that such a school exists in Karachi and I am really busy at the federal level and have no time for such lower level issues, but I will ask someone to look into the matter," he said. If the policymakers of this country are really serious about bringing change in the education sector then they must take an immediate step to restore this school and other schools like it. Daily Times

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